I would like to address a statement made by the QMA NBOD in a press release posted by QMA 4/12/11. "Corporate run organization, with all competition and technical rules determined by three executives from USAC, Input is not accepted from members." This is a nothing but a boldfaced lie!! For those of you that are not familiar with USAC, they have what is called a Competition Commitee, made up of industry professionals, and EVERY USAC club president. USAC has had this in their other divisions for years and was suggested to QMA a long time ago on deaf ears. The Competition Commitee meets face to face once a year but are contacted constantly for input when the need arises. A very good example of that is the most recent weight rule ammendment. For those of you USAC or QMA members that have had issues and been able to contact James directly at USAC and have recieved a very timely response can attest to this also. It just greatly PISSES me off with QMA using this type of propaganda and degrading all the time and effort put in by members of the Competition Commitee, Presidents,and all other officials involved in donating, YES DONATING, their time to make this form of racing RIGHT!!

Yeah that is a total crap statement on their part and isn't accurate at all. Input is accepted anytime in USAC. Just pick up the phone and call James.

Other points I found interesting in the press release:

"We believe that most of this is driven by lack of information and communication, and we are striving to improve in those areas."

I find this statement ironic. During the whole Animal engines thing I emailed Rich, Tom and Rusty many times and starting copying the entire NBOD too. The only person that responded to me and called me was Rusty and we had some really meaningful conversations on the topic. Then the night before they announced the change in direction, my last email offended Tom so he called me to talk about it too.

"but it has served us well for the past fifty years."

Sears had a long and storied history too, but then one day their remaining assets were purchased by K-Mart. History is nothing more than what got you to where you are today...it is what you do today that will decide if at some point in the future you still have a great and storied history.

Oh yeah, I will make these comments on the QMA forum too as soon as they validate my membership.

All I can say is..wow. I never sent James an e mail he didn't respond to or ask him or anyone else involved a question that didn't get answered. Imediatly. In QMA we had to follow this:

If any member has specific questions regarding arule, process, or have a question, they must FIRSTcontact their Club President and if necessary thentheir Regional Director who will then contact theNational Board of Directors. Any information fromthe National Board of Directors will go through theRegional Directors, to the Club Presidents, andthen the members.

There were even threats of punnishment for going "outside the chain of command".

I think the Competition COmitee works TONS better than the National Meeting. Prime example is the recent clairification of the Ballast rule from last week. Any concers arise you will always be able to get James on the phone to express concers and from what I have seen they have always been addressed.

I did not see that the goal of QMA meeting with USAC. Their intentions were unclear according to their press release. I got the impression that they just wanted to go so they can tell their members they try something. If they wanted to try something allow dual charters. The only thing that was suggested according to their release was USAC basically stepping in place of QMA but keep their name. Sounds good to me! But what did QMA offer?

Their are many examples of old businesses failing because they do the same thing over and over again expeccting different results. Just because they are old does not mean that they are the best. They can work on their communications, structure, principles all they want but if the product is the same old junk it will always fail.

addedTO be able to race both series you need the same rules. If QMA wishes USAC racers to come back and race why is it they are aligning their rules to make it very costly to do that? BECAUSE THEY ARE MAKING PEOPLE CHOOSE. They have no intention of wishing for kids to race both. I made my choise.

Wow...that is a crazy comment by QMA! Others above have said it well already. But my 2 cents worth is this: in the several years we raced QMA the RCP process was total BS, nothing the membership had to say seemed to mean much and there was not a good way to communicate with the National board. In USAC...the lines of communication with members is VERY open! I have regular email contact with James and others involved in USAC .25. My emails and questions to James are always answered and some of my suggestions have been considered and had an impact on changes made. That is nice to see. So in my opinion...even though USAC is a corporate run organization, they do a MUCH better job listening to their membership and have shown to use the input to improve the formats and sport.

From the "actions speak louder than words" department: We had an issue with an upcoming race that required action on USAC's part. I placed a call to USAC and was immediately connected to James (not voicemail). After a ten minute phone call, the matter was addressed and resolved within two or three of hours.This seems to me to be an example of the sanctioning body working on behalf of their clubs for the good of the sport and the members. I'm proud to be part of this organization.

I too was surprised to see all the lies within the QMA press release. QMA kicked my six and seven year olds out of QMA because I supposedly talked to USAC. I wrote the NBOD a letter after their press release and not a single one of them had the courtesy to response to it. I would have thought that their fearless leader or his sidekick would respond. I wonder if they kicked themselves out of QMA for talking to USAC??? Oh that's right to be the VP you would have needed to hold a local office for two years and be a full member to get voted in per QMA's rules and procedures!I think this previous post sums up what is wrong with QMA. Just to let everyone know, we are having a fantastic year in CT at Little T running under USAC! Great racing is happening every weekend for all our kids; something QMA has forgotten about.

Dale Gross

Quote

Even though the majority of QMA members are asking for a common ground of rules from their NBOD officials, its not going to happen. QMA NBOD will continue to throw members out, make backdoor deals, go against their own written rules and by-laws untill there is no QMA left. If you think about it, the largest, for now, quarter midget sanctioning body is ran by a small engine builder, bus driver and an electrical engineer that cannot be held liable for their actions. What do you expect?